Blount officials plan memorial bridge for slain deputy

A new bridge in Blount County could soon represent the area’s first permanent memorial for a slain sheriff’s deputy.

During a Tuesday, April 9, agenda workshop meeting, the Blount County Board of Commissioners voted without comment to send a proposal naming a future Big Springs Road bridge near Friendsville after Blount County Sheriff’s Deputy Greg McCowan. If commissioners approve during their regular meeting next week, April 18, once the bridge opens and a dedication ceremony is held it will be known officially as the Sheriff Deputy Greg A. McCowan Memorial Bridge, according to a resolution passed Tuesday. A plaque attached to the bridge will inform visitors of its new name.

McCowan was 43 when he was shot to death during a traffic stop Feb. 8. His killing, and the wounding of another deputy during the same stop, led to a five-day manhunt that ended only with the arrest of the alleged shooter.

The new bridge

Located in the 5000-block of Big Springs Road, the new bridge over Gallagher Creek will replace a nearly 100-year-old, unnamed structure.

That bridge’s replacement has been a major Blount County Highway Department priority since February 2023, when issues with the old structure led road officials to close both the bridge and the road leading to it. State officials had previously rated the bridge as ‘deficient’ in an evaluation and recommended that it be replaced. Department staff are currently working on the new bridge and the parts of the road leading to it.

Construction of the new bridge presented the department an opportunity to honor a man whose name is now meaningful for broad swathes of the community, highway Superintendent Jeff Headrick told The Daily Times. It will also be a way of reminding people of McCowan’s life and death in the future, he said.

“It’s important to remember,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday. Headrick said that he’d initiated the process in the weeks following McCowan’s death and that he was helping to coordinate efforts on the renaming.

Timing

Highway staff proposed earlier this year that the bridge, which saw daily traffic from about 3,600 motorists before it was closed, could reopen by April 1. Bad weather helped push that timeline back.

Highway department staff told the newspaper that a new timeline for the bridge’s opening would be difficult to provide. Assistant Highway Superintendent Chico Messer said Tuesday that the highway department has secured permission to use State Aid, a Tennessee state funding program, to work on the road leading to Big Springs Road. Paving, striping and signage are among the things that will need to be completed before the bridge and the road reopens. “Mother nature’s not helped,” the bridge reconstruction, Headrick acknowledged. But it’s also given him time to coordinate logistics for the dedication, he said. The project is a valuable one, he said, with a man’s memory being presented to the community for posterity.

“I think that’s pretty special,” Headrick said. He said that officials are still planning the details of a dedication ceremony, but that those would be public once they’re finalized.